Learning to look and listen.

With marriages it’s so important to communicate with your spouse.  Communication includes both speaking and listening.  Isn’t it interesting however that when it pertains to our relationship with God that communication is often 1 way.  We cry out to God when we are hurting or in need—but how often do we truly listen for his voice?  How often do we intently search to hear and see God communicating with us?  What if God desired to speak to us every day but we simply weren’t hearing him because we weren’t listening?  What if God was speaking to us through our dreams and our imagination yet we never realized it as we mistakenly assume that these things were all coming from within us.  What if he is conversing to us through the unusual coincidences in our lives—yet we analytically brush them off?  In 1 Kings 19:11-13, it states The Lord said (to Elijah), “Go out and stand on the mountain in the presence of the Lord, for the Lord is about to pass by. ‘Then a great and powerful wind tore the mountains apart and shattered the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake.  After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire.  And after the fire came a gentle whisper.   When Elijah heard it, he pulled his cloak over his face and went out and stood at the mouth of the cave.  Then a voice said to him, “What are you doing here, Elijah?”  It’s interesting that God was not speaking to Elijah through a loud booming voice that came to him amidst the tornado, earthquake or the fire.  He instead spoke to the prophet through a gentle whisper.  This whisper was also referred to as a “still, small voice”.  It was such a slight whisper that it almost might not been noticed if Elijah wasn’t intently listening for Gods’ voice.  What if part of our mission as Christ followers is to scrutinize the scripture to learn about God and his character so that when we hear that gentle whisper from God we can identify it as coming from our beloved heavenly father?  What if another part of our mission is to learn how to see and hear God’s voice and prompting in our lives?  To learn to listen intently so that when he speaks we hear him.  Jesus said in John 10:27, that “My sheep listen to my voice, I know them and they follow me.”  Most of us need to start talking less and listening (and looking) more when communicating with God.  Jesus said his sheep listen to his voice.  Well, fellow sheep, we better start listening.        

 

Proverbs 25:2 - It is the glory of God to conceal a matter; to search out a matter is the glory of kings.

John 10:1-5  “Very truly I tell you Pharisees, anyone who does not enter the sheep pen by the gate, but climbs in by some other way, is a thief and a robber. The one who enters by the gate is the shepherd of the sheep. The gatekeeper opens the gate for him, and the sheep listen to his voice. He calls his own sheep by name and leads them out. When he has brought out all his own, he goes on ahead of them, and his sheep follow him because they know his voice. But they will never follow a stranger; in fact, they will run away from him because they do not recognize a stranger’s voice.”

"With the comfort we ourselves received from God."

A little over two years ago I went up for prayer after a New Years Eve service at my church (Indy Vineyard).  At the time I felt like my life was spiraling out of control.  My marriage was failing and not only was I dealing with a pending divorce that I desperately didn’t want—but I was also dealing with the financial trauma of a failing business (Havilah's Boutique).  It was hard for me to be hopeful in the midst of all of the pain. loss and rejection that I was feeling.   That evening--the pain was so overwhelming that I almost sprung out of my seat at the end of the service when my Pastor, Randy Gooder, asked anyone needing prayer to come forward.  When I went forward and told the 2 prayer team members about my pending divorce and why I wanted prayer, they were so comforting.  The prayer team members, a married couple, let me know that they had almost gotten divorced themselves a few years prior before God healed their marriage.  I wept as they prayed that God would give me peace and show me his presence.  Walking away from church that evening, I felt God’s hand on my life.  However, I also felt like I was heard, cared for and encouraged by the prayer team members.  It wasn’t long until I volunteered to be on my churches prayer ministry team myself.  Less than a year after I began volunteering as a prayer team member, I had a young woman come up front and ask for prayer about her own pending divorce.  Her husband had left her for another woman and she was feeling both scared and abandoned.  It was awesome to be able to share with her about God faithfully meeting me in that same place.  I and another prayer team member prayed that God would make himself known to her in the midst of her pain.  That God would give her the peace of knowing that He was holding her and her children safely in the palm of His hand.  I also reminded her that regardless of how she felt at present, her heavenly father loved her profoundly.  As we were praying for the young woman --I could tell that God was really touching her heart that day.  It was so reassuring to know that God can still use us in our own brokenness to touch others with his love and mercy.  Like it says in 2 Cor. 1:3-5, “Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves receive from God. For just as we share abundantly in the sufferings of Christ, so also our comfort abounds through Christ.”

Experiencing Hardship

Hardship and adversity give us a great opportunity to see Gods hand at work in our lives.  Most of the time however we strive for comfort with everything in us.  When hardship hits my first response always used to be to pray that God would deliver me from the trauma (regardless of what is was). It is in that place of complete helplessness and dependence however that I learned to experience God in a deeper way than I ever had before.  The next time you encounter intense adversity try a different method of praying.  Instead of praying for God to rescue you from your hardship--pray that he both uses the situation to mold you into the person he wants you to be, as well as uses it to make himself known to you in a deeper and more intimate way.

WHO DO WE TURN TO?

WHO DO WE TURN TO?

What do you do when your life seems to be falling apart? How do you react? 
Who do you turn to first for help or guidance? 
How do you perceive your situation? 
Over the last few months of sharing my experiences on face book I have had the honor of being contacted by a number of facebook friends who shared with me their intense personal trauma. One face book friend just found out he has a large brain tumor (and is going in for surgery soon) , another had recently received the diagnosis of a very debilitating disease, while others have messaged me about struggling with failed marriages, estrangement from their children or loss of employment. The questions of who do you turn to and how do you perceive your situation are critical when you are facing things that seem (and often are) overwhelming.

    Around 13 years ago, I was in a tremendously tenuous financial situation. A business that I owned was failing. Due to some bad business decisions on my part (expending too quickly), coupled with an economic downturn AND substantial employee theft; I found myself over almost $250,000 in debt. When I finally woke up and realized the seriousness of my financial situation--I immediately closed the first location and scheduled a meeting with a Christian attorney for some legal (and hopefully spiritual counsel. At my first meeting with my Christian lawyer he looked at my financials and told me that it was too soon to make a decision on bankruptcy. In his words, “We serve a big God--give it 3 months and lets reevaluate at that point.” I struggled through the next few months until my next meeting with the attorney. During that next few months I was falling behind on sales taxes and the debt load was getting deeper. To pay my business bills (and payroll) I was starting to use my credit cards. I had two main credit cards, each with a $20,000 limit and I was using both those cards to prop up my one remaining store. Although the interest rates on both cards was less than 5%--I quickly found out that the credit card companies can increase your credit card interest rates up to 33% if you are late on a few payments. And I was late on quite a few! At that next meeting with my attorney, after looking at my books he told me that I needed to declare bankruptcy immediately. Although my first retail store was incorporated, which shielded me personally from most of the debt, I felt bankruptcy was still wrong in my situation. The decision to declare (or not to declare bankruptcy in my case) is a pretty stressful decision. I’m not making a statement of whether it’s right or wrong for anyone else. In my mind (and heart) however, it would be a bad example for me to close my Christian owned business and not pay off my debtors. Regardless of how I got into that financial chasm ultimately I was the owner, and I was responsible for paying off those creditors. So I went against my lawyers advice and personally assumed all that debt. 
Now prior to that business failure, I had grown accustomed to being successful in all my endeavors. I am and have been very successful in my military career as well as in my endeavors as an entrepreneur. Although I was a Christian and very involved in my church, my focus was not very clear. At that point in my life I was really concerned with projecting an image of being a financial success and my “religion” for the most part was contained within the hours of Wednesday evening Bible study and Sunday morning church services. 

    After I assumed that debt personally--I remember being so desperate for answers that I would spend hours online typing out prayer requests which I sent to various prayer websites--hoping that somehow who I perceived as a distant, ambivalent God would hear my prayers because of my perseverance. Little did I know that not only was God NOT distant or aloof, but my loving Creator was already using these hardships to show His affection for me. Over the next 10 years I saw multiple situations of God’s provision for me and my family (one story which I previously shared about getting a bike for my son). Although I wasn't happy being in that place of dependence, I started learning how to trust in God’s faithfulness even if the situation seemed hopeless. Although it took over 10 years, I eventually paid off all my creditors. During that period of time I experienced multiple situations of seeing God meet my needs when I had no one or nowhere else to turn to.

Daneille Snowden [Blog Editor]: Brian and I are friends from our high school youth group and had recently reconnected on facebook. Also, I was there when he first accepted Christ in 1982 at a Keith Green concert. I have been following his Facebook posts on his journey back into intimacy with God and offered to share them on a blog. Check out my blog: http://snowdenwiththefam-daneille.blogspot.com/